About
I am Professor of Hebrew Bible at Huron University College and a member of the graduate school faculty and the Centre for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction at the University of Western Ontario. In 2022, I will be Gerstein Distinguished Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies and Religion at the University of Toronto. As a biblical scholar and historian, my interests are broadly social and cultural, though my research in the last decade has focused on matters of violence. My second book, Violence and Personhood in Ancient Israel and Comparative Contexts, was published in 2017 by Oxford University Press. My previous monograph is entitled Marriage Gifts and Social Change in Ancient Palestine, 1200 BCE to 200 CE and was published by Cambridge University Press (2010). I am co-editor of volume 1 of the Cambridge World History of Genocide, along with Ben Kiernan and Tristan Taylor; this volume will be published in 2022. I have also co-edited two other books and authored over two dozen articles and essays. Please see my website (tmlemos.com) or my academia page to download articles or view my CV. Education
I received my A.B. in Judaic Studies from Brown University in 2000 and my Ph.D. from Yale University in religious studies in 2007, with distinction. Publications
Books
Violence and Personhood in Ancient Israel and Comparative Contexts, Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming November 2017.
Editor, with John J. Collins and Saul M. Olyan. Worship, Women, and War: Essays in Honor of Susan Niditch. Brown University Judaic Studies Series 357. Providence, RI: Brown University, 2015.
Marriage Gifts and Social Change in Ancient Palestine: 1200 BCE to 200 CE. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Paperback edition, 2014. 308 pp.
Refereed Journal Articles and Book Chapters
In progress: “With Half of Her He Roofed the Sky: Theologies of Torture and Dismemberment in Ancient West Asia,” volume on torture, abuse, and desecration in the name of God, edited by Saul Olyan.
“Dispossessing Nations: Population Growth, Scarcity, and Genocide in Ancient Israel and Twentieth-century Rwanda.” Pages 27-66 in Ritual Violence in the Hebrew Bible: New Perspectives, edited by Saul M. Olyan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
“The Apotheosis of Rage: Divine Anger and the Psychology of Israelite Trauma,”Biblical Interpretation 23 (2015): 101-121.
“Physical Violence and the Boundaries of Personhood in the Hebrew Bible,” Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 2.4 (2013): 500-531.
“Where There is Dirt, Is There System?: Revisiting Biblical Purity Constructions,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 37.3 (2013): 265-294.
“‘They Have Become Women’: Judean Diaspora and Postcolonial Theories of Gender and Migration.” Pages 81-109 in Social Theory and the Study of Israelite Religion: Essays in Retrospect and Prospect, edited by Saul M. Olyan. Resources for Biblical Study Series. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012.
“‘Like the Eunuch Who Does Not Beget’: Gender, Mutilation, and Negotiated Status in the Ancient Near East.” Pages 47-66 in Disability Studies and Biblical Literature, edited by Jeremy Schipper and Candida R. Moss. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
“The Universal and the Particular: Mary Douglas and the Politics of Impurity.” The Journal of Religion 89.2 (2009): 236-251.
“Shame and Mutilation of Enemies in the Hebrew Bible.” Journal of Biblical Literature 125.2 (2006): 225-241.
Articles in Edited Volumes
In progress: Response essay, volume on masculinities in the Hebrew Bible, edited by Ovidiu Creangă (T & T Clark/Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2018).
“Kinship, Community, and Society.” Pages 377-393 in The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Ancient Israel, edited by Susan Niditch. Oxford, UK: Wiley Blackwell, 2016.
“Were Israelite Women Chattel?: Shedding New Light on an Old Question.” Pages 227-241 in Worship, Women, and War: Essays in Honor of Susan Niditch, edited by T. M. Lemos, John J. Collins, and Saul M. Olyan. Brown Judaic Studies Series. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2015.
“Response: Forging a Twenty-first-century Approach to the Study of Israelite Warfare.” Pages 271-286 in Warfare, Ritual, and Symbol in Biblical and Modern Contexts, edited by Brad Kelle, Frank Ritchel Ames, and Jacob Wright. Ancient Israel and Its Literature Series. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014.
“Cultural Anthropology: Hebrew Bible.” Pages 157-165 in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, Volume 1, edited by Steven L. McKenzie, et al. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
“The Emasculation of Exile: Hypermasculinity and Feminization in the Book of Ezekiel.” Pages 377-393 in Interpreting Exile: Interdisciplinary Studies of Displacement and Deportation in Biblical and Modern Contexts, edited by Brad E. Kelle, Frank Ritchel Ames, and Jacob Wright. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011.
“Intermarriage.” Pages 767-769 in The Dictionary of Early Judaism, edited by John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010.
